Semyon Dragulsky, Director General of Russian Energy Efficiency Union

– By 2020 power machine building industry must be seriously modernized

It is necessary to enhance the energy efficiency of the Russian economy by 40% by 2020, Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin said during a conference on the development of Russia’s electric energy sector on Wednesday.

By 2020 the demand for electric energy in Russia may grow by 70%.

This is the forecast of experts. In reality, if the economy continues developing the way it is developing at present, the growth will be even bigger, Putin said. He noted that, in order to meet this demand, it was necessary to actively develop the electric energy complex.

Today, we need to increase our power generating potential and enhance our energy efficiency. Unfortunately, today, our economy consumers much more energy than the economies of the world’s developed countries. Our key problem is tear and wear of our power and industrial equipment. So, one of the key ways to enhance our energy efficiency is to seriously modernize this sector.

However, high energy efficiency will not be able to solve all of our problems. We must build new power plants. The general scheme says that in the near future we must launch over 40GW of new power plants. We should decide which type of energy is the most efficient and can make our energy sector less dependent on the growing oil and gas prices. I think that water and nuclear power plants are the best solution. But if water power plants depend on natural conditions, nuclear power plants have no such restrictions and their share can freely be raised to 25% and even more, like in Europe.